[FE8] [COMPLETE] Host of the Dark 2.5 (25 main chapters, 4 gaidens) + 0%, Fixed, and Casual modes!

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I was more referring to the 10 year jump with little to no explanation. Even with 6x being a vision of the future it just happens with 0 warning or explanation of what it was until after, and Sal being the focal point is just jarring since he doesn’t look feminine at all until post time skip.

Then two additional things about that bother me. How does a Shaman go from Dark Magic to a swordmaster with access to light magic, who stat caps are all at 30 with really bad growths when it seems like this is a lord swap to someone who is completely inferior to everyone pre time skip.

Back on subject for a second. Actually its only stated that Porter should be around and while the single house still standing is odd it doesn’t justify spawning 36 units (i counted) all at once WITH Captain murderhobo being there, to punish the player for investigating the only standing house for what would be assumed a survivor with info. As per using the summons, don’t design a map around using them even if you give the player a way to use them. Since most of the spawned units move before the general any summons will be killed before he moves which limits the praticality of using them to hold him off, coupled with the fact that every time he attacks he says his boss quote it geta tiresome really fast.

You should never mix a butload of enemies with a Lu Bu unit. I’m also just not a fan of the design choice of putting a one hit killer unit to threaten the player with. Its worse because the next chapter he’s told to sit below deck because he hesitate to kill the player which is a bull faced lie considering he can/will easily end you just one chapter ago.

You really should either half his move to allude to his lack of desire to kill you so the player has a chance to get some of the exp off the spawned dudes. Set the light rune to last more then two turns or something. as it stands if you don’t use the wyvern to get the light rune block off the general on turn 2 and both spawn and kill the boss on turn 3-5 then this chapter gets annoying fast. Even getting anna who’s level 3 with 16 speed isn’t worth prolonging the chapter. Another idea could be just cap his natural defense, resistance, skill, and strength and give him about 15ish speed. Most of the army you have at that point can’t really survive fighting a general with those caps at that point so you don’t have an item that gives +30 to a bunch of stats that less scrupulous players could abuse.

A few other issues i have, the defensive bow says ingame it grants +6 when the builder says -4. The first 3 bosses that aren’t tobias’s kill quotes are all kinds of janky. Finally dracozombies shouldn’t be early game enemies since i think you gave them negative stats to compensate for their weapon giving stats and it makes their stats underflow and look weird.

Apologies if this second batch comes off as too harsh.

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There’s a patch that allows you to change mission objectives mid-chapter. Make it so it will be “Investigate” first. You can also give the reinforcments a special AI that will force them to remian stationary for a turn, making it so the player won’t get unfairly punished.

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sorry for the late response

your criticism isn’t too harsh, I’m grateful you’re response was detailed, I can get a lot out of it

this was intentional, it was meant to surprise the player, it’s something that surprises the player and is then explained later, giving the explanation right when it happens would make the surprise less impactful, it would stop the progression of the story in order to explain what is happening in the moment.

the sudden focus on Sal may feel a little strange but as could be seen in chapter 7’s end cutscene, Cory was somehow working with Tobias, and since Sal is Cory’s brother he has a more direct correlation to the events than what is clear at first, the explanation for why Cory isn’t in part 2 and the exact circumstances will be told in the supports as I don’t feel they are necessary information. The design of Sal post timeskip is something that stemmed from a joke with a friend about Sal’s pre-timeskip portrait looking slightly feminine, I then decided to incorporate that into his character, it’s nothing deep or meaningful (maybe I’ll do something with that in supports)

I set the stat caps for the class before actually making the character, just simply didn’t bother to lower them, to address the shaman to swordmaster with light magic, that’s a small detail that is more to be explained in supports, explaining Sal’s sudden class change isn’t really necessary to the main plot, also I’d like to point out that Sal gets two prfs, he starts out a bit lackluster but if you don’t just neglect him and give him the angelic robe you get in ch.8, he can be decently strong.

as for the map complaint, I admit it does need a bit of a rework, however, because Eagle will always attack the phantom because of their lack of defense you can catch him in a loop .

just some glitches that need to be sorted, thanks for reporting them.

I just need to rework the weapon stat bonuses and the bases of the draco-zombies, again thanks for the info.

thank you for the detailed reply, it’s really appreciated

thanks for the tip

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I’m glad that my rather irritable explanations are of some use. I’d still say it’s better for eagle to just have some capped stats to make him threatening than a stat boosting weapon, but i suppose that one is up to taste.

One other thing i noticed when messing around in the builder was the Ross Event was still in chapter 2.

Small tangent. I really think there needs to be a little more thought put into forming a narrative here. I had to actively force myself to play two more chapters and just wanted to stop. This is mostly because i find myself completely unable to care about the characters. I’m not saying you should write a full novella but there really needs to be a bit more substance to give some motivation.

The best way I can put it was after thinking on it I felt like i got thrown 40% of the way though a kinda bland fantasy high school anime. Its why i used that particular chapter as a point of contention for me personally. Without any knowledge of that character having visions that chapter comes off like a slap to the face.

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@theghostcreator

I tried to finish ur hack but the story was so weirdly put together that it lost my attention and i got bored, the difficulty was also very easy also u should add the usual QoL updates like danger zone etc.

Spoiler

Timeskip was very badly done , i had no idea who was who until i came here and watched the char pictures.It felt like i walked in a movie 45 mins in and missed half of it and had no idea what was going on wich immidiately turned me off.

Good luck.

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thanks for the critique!
From what I understand the links between the first and second parts were very weak in terms of story, I didn’t know how to recolor portraits for most of this project so that’s definitely going to be changed next update along with many cutscene rewrites to better connect events together and explain them, thank you for the review!

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I wish you luck with the next update.

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Heya! I know it’s been a while and with FEE3 around the corner, I figured I should give a quick update on the progress of the 1.0.0 release, unfortunately, it seems it will be quite a while yet before it’s complete so how about this, I’ll put out a poll asking whether you want an in-progress build of this new version which I will title as Host of the Dark Relight or simply Relight in this thread, or if you want me to wait until everything is done and just post it then.

  • Post in progress builds of Relight while you’re making it
  • Post Relight in one complete package once you’re finished with the project
  • Make a discord server and post updates there
  • Update your old beta test thread for Relight beta testers

0 voters

now then, with that out of the way, I figured I should get a little bit of input from those who both have and complete the current build of Host of The Dark, what maps did you think were good and what maps did you find bad? Did you like the characters and what parts did you or did you not like about them? What parts of the story are good and what parts are bad? Essentially just give well-rounded advice, sure giving criticism helps me improve but I may accidentally ruin what parts you liked about the hack.

and one last thing before I go here is a quick preview of what’s to come :slight_smile:
preview
please tell me what you thought of it, I love hearing feedback because it shows that I still have room to improve!

see you in the next update!

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“Fix your grammar, Max”
Hilarious!

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Why is Jordan’s growth like that? 28,29,23? Is there a reason it doesn’t end with a 0 or 5? I’m just curious because I’ve never seen growths like that before.

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Eh, Jordan was way too good in earlier versions so I just lowered all his stats and his growths, I just made his growths not in increments just because, may change all of them to 25, but I find it funny.

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Odd growths like that are actually common in more recent FE games once class growths became a thing.

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I think you might want to put some of those growths closer to the 40% range, as it stands if his growths are that low he’s basically an FE2 character.

Really he’s only too good early on because of the Magekiller he starts with.

I only say this because you should always be careful with nerfing units since you can easily turn an early game pinch hitter into instant bench fodder that way, and honestly with no growths higher that 30 he’s just a bench warmer at that point.

Especially since he isn’t immediately around post time skip so unless he get something that super buffs him upon rejoin he’s just a liability.

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Oh gotcha lol I have no idea how the growths would work being such odd numbered but makes him seem to be a fun unit to try out because of it.

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Which ones? I looked at every fire emblem after FE10 and not one character has a growth rate that’s not ending with a 5 or a 0.

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gotcha, thanks for the tip, just don’t want anyone to snowball out of control, which is one of the reasons why Max is the Jagen and not let’s say Jordan or Fidem, a flier can easily be limited in movement with a ballista or sniper, the wight in this preview was actually supposed to not be doubled by Max, limiting his movement until you can take them out.

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Awakening is the first one that comes to mind since inheritance effects growths.

Like lucina starts with 35% in strength but then the mother variable is added and it ranges from 51-58% depending on one of the 6 possible mothers.

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I can understand not wanting any too blatantly OP units, you’ve just gotta be careful with it.

I’d say take a few things into account when finalizing a characters growths.

  1. Availability, a unit you have for 90% can allow you more room to bolster their stats or weapon ranks to compensate for sketchy growths.

  2. Promotion Gains, when applicable can easily bolster a characters issue and help minimize the issue with them, it’s also why most prepromotes have good stats but bad growths.

  3. Stat Caps. It doesn’t matter if a unit has monster growths if they get borked by their caps, the promote at 20 fallacy can work against units that start with high bases and lower levels.

  4. Enemy scaling. Take into account the power of enemies when a unit joins or rejoins the player, if the unit isn’t able to properly handle the map they start on or get any meaningful stats on that map then the player has less incentive to use that unit.

  5. Unit class. Try not to overload the player with too many of any one class or type. Like don’t give the player 7 mounted units when you’ve got a bunch of densely placed terrain coming up since they move so poorly through it. No matter how many people think mounts are king, foot units are important too.

Honestly most of this only somewhat matters its just things i’ve picked up on from the 20 odd hacks i’ve played so take it with a grain of salt. I also apologize if any of this came off rude.

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not at all, I appreciate the advice! By nature of Jordan being the only early game cav their stats only need to be decent enough that they don’t get demolished, plus promoting at level 10 is very much encouraged by nature of this hack

Spoilers

having an uneven split between parts 1 and 2

and other than that most, if not all of these pointers have been followed up until now, no need to worry about me being incompetent at unit balance (not anymore at least)

again thanks for the advice, every piece of constructive criticism or pointers are important to any game’s development (project triangle strategy adding camera control is one example)

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Your very much welcome, I haven’t been a part of this community long but as I’ve enjoyed so many hacks i feel like what little help i can give is useful.

Especially since have so much free time on my hands to play games and hacks.

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